The premise is deceptively simple: residents receive a compact, high-capacity battery—specifically the Bluetti Elite 200 V2—which is plugged into a standard wall outlet. The air conditioning unit is then connected to the battery rather than the grid. During periods of peak demand, when the electrical grid is most stressed, these batteries discharge their stored energy, shielding the household from the grid’s volatility while allowing residents to remain cool without guilt or excessive costs.
A New Approach to Grid Demand Response
For years, New York City utility provider Con Edison has operated demand response programs. Historically, these programs required participants to manually adjust their thermostats or power down appliances during “peak events”—usually the hottest afternoons of the year when grid load hits its maximum. For many, this meant sweating through the heat in exchange for small, often negligible financial credits.
Every Electric, founded by Andrew Wang and Richard May, sought to automate and optimize this process. The duo, both former postdoctoral researchers at the Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center, initially formed their venture as Standard Potential Co. in 2023 with a focus on pioneering sodium-ion battery chemistry. By 2026, the company underwent a strategic pivot and rebranding, shifting its primary mission toward the deployment of residential energy storage.
The company’s business model rests on a "value-sharing" architecture. By aggregating thousands of small-scale energy storage units, Every Electric functions as a single, large-scale battery in the eyes of the grid operator. When Con Edison signals a need for load reduction, the network of batteries responds near-instantaneously. The resulting savings and incentive payments from the utility are split between the company and the participating households, with users typically earning roughly $150 per year for each air conditioner integrated into the system.
Chronology of Expansion
The project has evolved rapidly from a theoretical pilot to a significant infrastructure play:
- 2023: Founding of Standard Potential Co. at Columbia University, focusing on battery chemistry research.
- 2025: The initial pilot program launches, deploying 100 batteries across 65 households to test the viability of the residential VPP model.
- 2026: The company rebrands as Every Electric. The program scales to 2,000 batteries across approximately 1,000 households, contributing a total of four megawatt-hours of distributed energy storage.
- 2027 (Projected): Every Electric aims to scale its deployment to 10,000 units, fueled by a waiting list that exceeded 15,000 requests by the end of the previous summer.
Technical Infrastructure and Residential Integration
The hardware central to the program, the Bluetti Elite 200 V2, offers 2 kilowatt-hours of capacity. While designed primarily for AC units, its versatility allows it to function as a home power bank for laptops, routers, and essential appliances during broader grid outages. This provides an additional layer of resiliency for residents in older buildings where electrical infrastructure may be prone to failure during extreme weather events.
The integration process is designed to be frictionless. Once the battery is delivered, the user connects it to their home Wi-Fi. Every Electric’s backend software then remotely manages the charge-discharge cycles. The system is programmed to draw power from the grid during off-peak hours—often when electricity is cheaper and the grid is cleaner—and discharge that energy during the intense, high-priced demand peaks of a heat dome.
However, the transition has not been without technical hurdles. In high-density, aging urban environments, the interaction between new storage technology and old electrical wiring can be complex. During the summer of 2026, some participants experienced tripped circuit breakers during periods when Con Edison initiated voltage reductions to protect the grid. Every Electric addressed these issues through rapid, over-the-air firmware updates, fine-tuning the battery’s power draw to accommodate the specific constraints of older residential wiring.
Economic and Environmental Implications
The implications of this model are significant, particularly for a city like New York, where over 80 percent of the housing stock predates 1975. Most of these structures lack central air conditioning, relying instead on window units that are notoriously inefficient and grid-taxing.
By distributing energy storage, Every Electric is effectively solving the "last mile" problem of the energy grid. Instead of building massive, centralized peaker plants—which are often expensive to maintain and environmentally controversial—the grid can rely on the distributed, idle capacity of residential batteries. This "virtual" approach also offers a hedge against the rising cost of electricity. As grid demand continues to climb due to the electrification of heating and transportation, the ability to shift usage patterns becomes a critical economic tool for the average consumer.
The environmental impact is equally notable. By shifting consumption to off-peak hours, the system incentivizes the use of electricity when the grid’s energy mix is greener—often during the middle of the night when wind energy or other baseload renewables are more prevalent, compared to the peak afternoon hours when dirty, carbon-heavy peaker plants are fired up to meet demand.
Scaling the Virtual Power Plant
Every Electric is now looking beyond its initial New York City testing ground. The company has reported interest from other utility territories that are keen to replicate the "drop-shipped megawatt-hour" model. As urban areas across the United States face similar challenges with grid capacity and aging infrastructure, the Every Electric model offers a blueprint for how individual households can become active participants in national energy security.
However, sustainability of the model depends on several factors: the continued decline in the cost of lithium iron phosphate battery cells, the willingness of regulators to standardize incentives for VPPs, and the ability of startups to manage the logistics of thousands of individual hardware units.
Despite these challenges, the consumer reception has been overwhelmingly positive. The long waiting list suggests that for many New Yorkers, the appeal is not just in the modest financial return, but in the peace of mind offered by having a reliable, backup power source. And, as an unexpected side effect noted by the developers, the warmth emitted by the batteries during operation has become a surprising hit with the city’s domestic cat population—a small, anecdotal sign that the technology has successfully integrated itself into the domestic environment.
As the energy landscape continues to shift, the success of programs like those run by Every Electric serves as a proof-of-concept for a more decentralized future. By turning passive consumers into active "prosumers" who manage their own energy flow, the grid can become more resilient, more efficient, and, ultimately, more capable of weathering the extremes of a changing climate. Whether this model can be scaled to tens of thousands of households across multiple cities remains the next great challenge for the company, but the current momentum suggests that the era of the residential battery has only just begun.
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